Arab Revolt

I

Introduction

Arab Revolt (1916-1918), rebellion against Ottoman rule by the Arabs of the Middle East that coincided with World War I.

II

Background to the Revolt

The Middle Eastern states that we know today, such as Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq, and Saudi Arabia, did not exist in 1914. They were all creations of the period after World War I. The Middle Eastern region was ruled by the Ottoman Empire and was to remain loyal to the Ottoman sultan at the outbreak of World War I.

During World War I, as part of its war against the Turks, Britain attempted to build up alliances among the Arab subjects of the Ottoman Empire. Led by Husein ibn Ali, sharif of Mecca, the Hashemite Arabs of the Al Ḩijāz region around the Muslim Holy Cities of Mecca and Medina became the most important of these allies. In 1916 they rose up in revolt against Ottoman rule. Depending on your perspective, the revolt of the Hashemites was either the result of rising Arab nationalism that was determined to throw off oppressive Turkish rule or was an attempt by a group of tribal Hashemite Arabs to spread their power base north from the Al Ḩijāz region into Palestine, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. The British, and to a lesser extent the French, provided military supplies, finance, and military advisers to help sustain the Arab revolt. For the British, the Hashemites were of military and imperial value: they could harry Ottoman forces in Arabia while also providing valuable allies for the British Empire once the war was over and new powers replaced the old Ottoman Empire. For the Hashemites, support from Britain would help them in their attempts to throw off Ottoman rule and create Hashemite-led Arab states in the Middle East.

The Arab revolt began in June 1916 with a successful attack on the Ottoman garrison in Mecca. However, an assault on Ottoman troops in Medina, the terminus of the Al Ḩijāz railway that connected the region with Damascus to the north, failed. Indeed, the garrison at Medina held out until ordered to surrender in 1919 by the Ottoman government in Constantinople.

III

Military Operations

Military operations during the Arab revolt concentrated on: firstly, hounding Ottoman forces along the Al Ḩijāz railway; secondly, attacking Ottoman forces in the Transjordan region around Amman; and, finally, supporting British-led troops of the Egyptian Expeditionary Force (EEF) based in southern Palestine in their final push at the Battle of Megiddo in September-October 1918 when they attacked and occupied all of Palestine and Syria.

Completed in 1906, the Al Ḩijāz railway was, ostensibly, built to ferry Muslims going on the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina. It was, however, also a vital means of extending Ottoman control over the western portion of the Arabian Peninsula and became, during World War I, a line of communication of considerable importance for the Ottomans. Its destruction, therefore, was a key aim for the main Hashemite army, the Northern Arab Army (NAA), led by Husein’s third son, Faisal. Estimates on the size of the NAA vary from 8,000 regular and 17,000 irregular troops to only 3,000 rifles. Numbers of volunteers in the NAA certainly fluctuated, with periodic influxes of Arabs who had served in Ottoman forces and who had been released from British prisoner-of-war (POW) camps to serve in the NAA. These former POW helped form an officer corps for the NAA. From 1916 to 1918, NAA units attacked isolated Ottoman blockhouses, stations, and trains along the Al Ḩijāz railway. The strategic significance of these attacks has been overestimated as Ottoman forces kept open the 1,300 km (800 mi) line from Damascus to Medina. However, in May 1918, an NAA force led by a British officer, Lieutenant-Colonel Alan Dawnay, blew up a long section of the railway 80 km (50 mi) south of Maan, after which the railway to Medina no longer functioned. The attacks on the Al Ḩijāz railway also involved the enigmatic Colonel T. E. Lawrence (“Lawrence of Arabia”). While involved in attacks on the Al Ḩijāz railway, Lawrence’s most important task was to act as Britain’s senior political liaison officer with Husein and Faisal.

By 1918, Arab military operations had extended north to the Transjordan region where, in January, a battle was fought with regular Ottoman forces at Tafilah near the shores of the Dead Sea. The Battle of Tafilah was the exception to the Arab revolt, as forces of the NAA were not equipped or trained to fight Ottoman forces in open battle. Rather, the aim was to carry out a guerrilla-style campaign to worry and tie down Ottoman forces that would otherwise have been available for use against the EEF in southern Palestine.

The culmination of the Arab revolt came with the Battle of Megiddo in September 1918, when the EEF launched its final assault in Palestine. In co-ordination with the EEF attack, the NAA was tasked with attacking the Ottoman eastern desert flank before combining with EEF forces at the crucial rail junction of Dar‘ā and pushing on to Damascus. Everything went to plan. The NAA pursued retreating Ottoman units—who were accompanied by a small German force—streaming north from Dar‘ā. On October 1, 1918, Damascus fell.

The capture of Damascus emphasized the imperial-political element to the Arab revolt, as it was vital that the Arabs entered Damascus first to exclude French claims to the city. Therefore, the EEF tailored its operations at Damascus to give the appearance that Arab Hashemite forces entered first. Once in the city, Hashemite forces took over the running of the place. The British ignored French protests that this went against the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916. Lawrence, who rode into Damascus with Faisal’s NAA, was the key liaison officer directing Arab operations and, once in Damascus, he helped establish Faisal as ruler. On October 3, 1918, the supreme commander of the EEF, General Edmund Allenby, arrived in Damascus to confirm the Hashemite regime in Syria.

IV

Legacy

The Arab revolt was more significant politically than militarily. The military operations helped the main British-led force in Palestine with a guerrilla war on the Ottoman eastern flank, but the revolt was insufficiently strong to defeat the Ottoman armies in the region without the assistance of regular EEF troops. Politically, the British-sponsored Arab revolt was part of the transformation of the Middle East from one dominated by the Ottoman Empire to one ruled by local Arab rulers. Faisal’s regime in Syria was eventually crushed by French forces in 1920 but Hashemite regimes in Transjordan and Iraq were established and lasted until 1958 in Iraq and to the present day in Jordan.